The Wizards have won five out of their first twenty games. That’s not very good. What’s most troublesome is that four of our five wins have come against two of the leagues worst teams: the Raptors and Bobcats.

Currently the Raps are 8-18 while the Bobcats are the only team in the league with a worse record than the Wiz at 3-21. So, to recap, the Wiz have gone 4-1 against the Raptors and Bobcats and 1-19 against the rest of the NBA. Inexplicably the only other win came against the best team in the West: the 19-5 Thunder, but it’ll just hurt my head if I dwell on that.

Being a Wizards fan in this day and age is not an easy task. We have a building block in John Wall, but he’s starting to look like the only piece worth keeping. Finally (as I’ve mentioned in almost every other Wiz related post) the Wizards are openly shopping Andray Blatche, but the problem now is he’s injured and his trade value has plummeted since the rest of the league figured out he doesn’t want to really earn his money.

But I feel as though I’ve bashed Blatche enough here, so I’ll leave him alone (for now).

Back to the topic at hand: How bad are these Wizards?

In my season-opening post I projected 19 wins for this club. With the All-Star break looming and mid season staring us down it’s beginning to look like 19 wins was a pipe dream. This squad has gotten a coach fired in Flip Saunders, they’ve been called one of the lowest collective basketball IQ’s in the history of the game, and they’re not getting any better game-t0-game.

The Wizards haven’t developed talent in recent memory. Even in the Gilbert/Caron/Jamison hey-day we got all of those players through free agency or trades. GM Ernie Grunfeld and any coaching staff he’s assembled has not been able to draft, evaluate, and develop a team to date.

The players who were meant to carry the Wizards this season were:

John Wall: Still very much a work in progress. He’s showed flashes and his numbers aren’t bad (16 points, 5 boards, 7 assists a night), but he’s been inconsistent to say the least. For the number one pick and savior of our franchise he’s been somewhat of a let-down in year two.

Nick Young: Do I really need to talk about how Nick Young is not a building block? He’s a chucker, plain and simple. You know the guy at your local gym who anytime he catches the ball goes one-on-one and forces up a contested jump shot? That’s Nick.

JaVale McGee: McGee, like Wall, is still a work in progress. He shows flashes of what could be greatness but other times he looks like a lost puppy. If he can figure out how to defend the pick-and-roll and not pick up cheap fouls he could stick.

This isn’t a team that was meant to win this year, at least I hope not. With a loaded NBA Draft this coming April the Wiz should be able to pick up a great young player again. The question is can the organization develop talent in the future?